A Hundred Strings in Bournemouth: Ragas by the Sea

Three musicians, and two ways of playing a raga on strings.Adnan Khan, a Grammy-nominated sitarist from Delhi, plays in the gayaki ang, which models sitar playing on the singing voice.

His grandfather, the late Ustad Zafar Ahmed Khan, gave him his first lessons, and he trains with his father, the sitar player Ustad Saeed Khan.Vinay Desai plays the santoor, the hundred-stringed instrument of Kashmir, as a direct disciple of Padma Vibhushan Pandit Shivkumar Sharma.

The sitar is plucked and slides between notes.

The santoor is struck and cannot slide, so it moves in runs.Ustad Akram Khan plays tabla with both.

The seventh generation of his family in the Ajrada gharana, he learned from his great-grandfather Ustad Mohammad Shafi Khan, then from Ustad Niazu Khan, and keeps more than fifteen of the gharana's kaydas in his teaching.